Yoga for Boomer Women: Guest post by Lexi Yoga

Today’s guest post comes from Lexi Yoga, a certified yoga instructor from Toronto who loves hot yoga, traveling the world and living in the present moment. We met her last year at the Fitness Health Bloggers Conference in Denver, which she attended with her mom. So we suppose they both like to travel! With a 200-hour Hatha Yoga Teacher’s Training and a 30-hour Yin Yoga Certification, we are excited that Lexi is sharing her knowledge to address some of the specific benefits that yoga provides to boomer women.

If you are a woman in your late 40s and above, you are probably at the age when you focus more on self-care, knowing that you are entering the part of your life when it’s important to feel comfortable in your body. By this age, you may be concerned about your quality of life, and the confidence and self-esteem boost that comes from taking good care of yourself. Yoga is a great way to look and feel more beautiful from the inside out. To invest in your health is the best retirement plan you can create, and it is never too late to begin.

Confidence
Yoga can transform you into a more confident woman who’s not afraid to meet life’s challenges. Not only will you become stronger, more flexible, and more agile, but yoga will also affect your mind as you cultivate patience. Yoga can help prepare you to face life’s changes with love, respect, and belief in yourself, and will strengthen you in all the choices you make.

Through yoga, you will learn to listen more to yourself, and trust your self-assessments. As you set the boundaries that work for this phase of life, you will hone your ability to take one day at a time and stay at the present moment. Not tomorrow or yesterday, but now.

Yoga takes your values and thoughts and turns them upside down. If you’ve harbored negative thoughts about yourself, you’ll find yourself becoming a more positive person who values the experiences life has to offer.

Self Esteem
In the past, women approaching their 50’s lowered their expectations of what their bodies could do. Perhaps due to cultural pressures and perceptions, women’s self-esteem at this age could suffer. Stress adds tension, especially at the shoulders and neck, which can affect breathing. Once women learn to breathe deeply, their shoulders relax and you can see them start to settle into their own bodies as they learn how to use their entire lungs when they breathe.

No matter what age we are, we have to believe that we are good enough just the way we are. It has to be repeated over and over so that it manifests itself in the mind, because it is the truth. We have to accept and love ourselves for who we are. We don’t need to be perfect – we just have to like who we are. But we sometimes need a little bit of help, because the pressure from the external world is powerful. Yoga can be that friend that provides help.

Yoga is a powerful practice that encourages wellbeing on so many levels. It enables us to age with grace and beauty, and makes the aging process more pleasurable and meaningful.

If you are new to yoga and don’t know where to begin, the following video is for you. It is a sequence of 8 yoga postures specifically for beginners.

More cool info about Lexi: She instructs Yoga videos on her YouTube channel and actively works on her website LexiYoga.com. Her life mainly consists of – Eat, Sleep & Yoga. Follow her to learn more about the healing power and benefits of yoga.